Saturday, March 02, 2013

Stop the great fuel robbery

By New Worker correspondent

CAMPAIGNERS
against the profiteering of the Big Six energy companies at the expense of
people who need to keep their homes warm last Saturday succeeded in blocking
Whitehall, many of them in wheelchairs which they parked across the road.

The campaigners included many disabled people
and pensioners – those who suffer most from the constantly rising costs of
keeping their homes warm.

They
came to deliver a message to the Department of Energy and Climate Change in
Whitehall as part of a very busy Week of Action all over Britain. The previous
day demonstrators targeted the Edinburgh headquarters of Scottish Gas. Other
protests took place in Nottingham, Lewisham, Haringey, Hackney and Southwark.

The message they had to deliver was that while
thousands are dying from cold homes every winter, the Government is cutting
vital fuel poverty lifelines.

Meanwhile the Government and energy companies
want to increase our dependence on dirty and expensive gas power, which will
send fuel bills even higher and contribute to rising food prices through
climate change.

Dozens of Big Six energy company staff are
being loaned to work in Government energy policy. Together, they’re doing all
they can to keep profiting from the Great Fuel Robbery. The protest in
Whitehall was very well attended and was coming to a close when protesters
decided spontaneously to ram home their message a bit harder by blocking
Whitehall. Several who were in wheelchairs positioned themselves across the
road while police were left to redirect traffic to the Embankment.

There
were a lot of police, with more arriving from vans in the side streets. For a
while there was a big rise in tension. The disabled protesters and the
pensioners were very vulnerable.

But there was a cool-headed police liaison
officer and there were negotiations. A bargaining process took place, with
protesters declaring they would stay for two hours and then go, while the
police wanted immediate withdrawal to the pavement.

There were complications as one pensioner sat
down and handcuffed himself to a wheelchair. Police moved in to remove the
cuffs – while one of the organisers from her wheelchair reassured the crowd,
saying: “The police are removing handcuffs, not putting them on. If that’s what
they were doing we’d be acting very differently.”

It all ended peacefully and in good humour,
with the blockage lasting about 40 minutes.

Passers-by asked what the protest was about
and when told expressed their complete support. There is little public love for
the profiteering power companies.

James
Granger, from Fuel Poverty Action, said: "You hear some really terrible
stories of people being forced out of their homes because they can't afford to
keep the heating on.

"People
are going hungry and they're freezing and they've come out to say enough is
enough, they're not going to tolerate the Great Fuel Robbery any longer."

Rising
energy costs have left more than six million households in Britain in fuel
poverty because they spend more than 10 per cent of their income on heating
their homes, campaigners say.